


Pure Imagination

by melforbes



Category: The X-Files
Genre: the ssn12 that i'm thankful will never be on-screen, titles have never been my strong suit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 19:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14119308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melforbes/pseuds/melforbes
Summary: He can make his little sister see anything.





	Pure Imagination

**Author's Note:**

> As is becoming a pattern, [this was never actually my idea.](http://thexfiles.tumblr.com/post/172286984270/william-has-the-sweetest-affection-for-evie-he)

Though they've sat down with him for hours going over histories, files, his own ultrasounds compared to Ev's, he's found that the most he knows about these biological parents of his is that they're incredibly strict about electronics and that, if the weather is even remotely warm, they will always take the opportunity to perform intercourse outdoors. And they think he hasn't caught on yet.

"Sorry, we just-"

"Something came up with Skinner," Mulder says as he grabs his car keys and shags on a coat. It's a springtime kind of warm, no rain in sight. "We have to head out."

"Can you watch her?"

Scully thrusts the baby into his arms - stronger now from having to cut firewood, and marked up with the remnants of a rash that was apparently supplied from cutting firewood - and he, again, takes her. At this point, there's a protocol: they race away to whatever area is to their fancy - and hopefully far from whatever caused his rash - and he takes Ev, occupies her by poking, prodding, or replicating Vines. By the time summer comes around, he wants to have the baby-sound beatboxing one down.

Of course, they're out of the house like rabbits who, well, you know, and he's got Ev, and this would be way more fun if he could, like, paint a mustache on her face and text a picture of that to his friends, but, no, she's half-asleep against his chest, tuckered out in her six-month glory, and he can't exactly repeat last time's entertainment - playing John Steinbeck cassettes he found in the attic off of a boombox that's probably around his age and pausing occasionally to ask Ev for her perspective on this great novel, then restarting after some insightful babbles that he would profoundly understand if only he lived a more active-brained life - would only make her the tiny lump equivalent of pissed off. If he has to change a diaper tonight, he'll get into Mulder and Scully's heads at exactly the wrong time and make them think of their parents in the same act. He did try Ghouli once, but they never even noticed.

His bedroom, on the first floor of the house and filled with newspaper-clipping detritus in cobwebbed corners, has the book Scully forced upon him, so he heads there, does his usual one-handed pickup while Ev fusses. Then, it's onto her little room upstairs, where there's a rocking chair more fitted to Scully's body than his but where he can sit while Ev naps, and as he drops his book, then starts to put her down in her crib, she, to his absolute chagrin, screams. On some television show, someone said something about letting the baby cry, so he sets her on the mattress, lets her cry, and takes his book over to the rocking chair. Though the day had been cloudy, sun suddenly comes in through Ev's window, painted stars on the walls illuminating, soft little toys cast in brightness. He squints as he opens his book. Ev wails. He tries to focus on his book. Ev slams a tiny fist down, then erupts, more or less, making his ears ring.

"Fine!" he gives up, throwing the book down and heading back to her, lifting her up from the crib, holding her in the way Scully taught him to, bouncing just enough that maybe, by a twist of fate, he'll knock her lips together, and they'll stay shut. For once in his life, the _book_  sounds enticing. He loves Ev, of course, but when she's screaming next to his ear, he'd prefer a rabid hyena who had just consumed ten Hershey bars to a sister of any kind. When Ev was really little, he used to go into her head, shift things around, make her think that Scully was holding her instead so that the baby would quiet, but now, she has to have memories, right? And that feels too artificial, too manipulative, and he won't break his one rule for himself front of his sister: never, absolutely never, be a shithead again. Of course, the rule is easier to follow when she isn't screaming in his ear, but-

_Never be a shithead again. When was the last time you thought that?_

It was around late February, when Ev had been sick and when Mulder had been taking the brunt of Scully's anxiety, anger, and, though they never mentioned it by that word to him, persistent postpartum depression. Through weeks of on-and-off snowfalls, enough to shut them all out of the light and into close quarters with a sick, unhappy baby for weeks, William had felt - acutely, even, mirror neurons or something setting him off - as Scully had cried, the way overwhelm came from even just having to feed Ev, the sense that this winter would last forever and that, by the time spring finally came, there would be nothing of her left. As William went to bring their dinner plates to the sink one night, Mulder pulled a wrapped package from his pocket, a birthday present; Will had forgotten the date altogether and was empty-handed as Scully unwrapped a custom-made pendant with Ev's and Will's birthstones set into its design. Luckily enough, Scully never mentioned anything, had seemed to even have forgotten the date herself, but nonetheless, he wanted to give her _something,_  even just a half-folded sheet of printer paper that he could call a card. Though this family of his had never really gotten its footing in life, he still knew that they all loved each other, that being together was where they all needed to be; Mulder and Scully always said goodnight to him even though he'd at first been annoyed with the practice, and despite his arguments otherwise, they always told him that he was smarter, kinder, better than he thought he was, then gave reasons why they knew that to be true. They _loved_  him, and he wanted to love them back.

Before heading to bed, Scully knocked on his bedroom door, and he gave the customary _come in_ , so she opened his door, peeked.

"Hey," she gave with a small smile. Whatever that necklace had cost, it was obviously worth it. "What if we were to go into the city tomorrow? Just you and me."

Will sat up in bed, asked, "Why?"

She shrugged, gave, "Mulder's more of a homebody, and I wouldn't be shocked if you were getting cabin fever too."

"How's Ev?" he asked.

"Good," she gave with a concise nod. "The antibiotics are finally helping."

"Yeah, she's been less..."

"Less of a grouch," Scully said, putting it lightly. "So, Smithsonian? We can go out for lunch afterward."

Right, because with Scully all major events occurred before noon.

"Okay, sure," he gave, nodding.

"Okay." She smiled. "Goodnight. Tell us if you need anything."

As she went to close the door, he reached out, said, "Wait."

She stepped back in, askance in her eyes, and he beckoned her over, motioned for her to sit down alongside him. Slouching against his headboard, she asked, "What do you need?"

"Give me your hand."

She offered without compunction, the right one, not the one with the ring on it.

"Okay," she said as he gripped her fingers. "Now what?"

But then, he sprouted a tiny bud from their clasped hands, something he'd been practicing all evening while cupping his own hands together, and slowly, whimsically, the bud turned to extended vines to flowers, little petals fluttering about as flora spread over their laps, across his bed, through the gaps in his headboard, over the newspaper detritus that screamed _MONSTER IN THE WOODS?_  from beside spider-silk. The vines climbed over his ajar closet-door, over the desk he and Mulder had built and polished together, over the stacks of books that had no shelves and that he didn't know where else to put, over the warm slippers he had stolen from Mulder and over all of the dirty clothes he'd let pile upon his floor. Orchids, zinnias, elephant-ears, he knew none of them by name but could craft them ornately, petals appearing from entwined stalks, bright reds, purples, and greens filling his bedroom. Back in school, he'd ignored much of biology but could remember luminescence; however, the candescence that came to the flowers he made for her was nothing in comparison to the awed look on her face, a mixture of amazement, joy, and pure pride in him.

"Happy birthday," he gave offhandedly, as if he hadn't turned his dark bedroom into a glowing greenhouse for her.

As she let go of his hand to hug him especially tightly, he found that he didn't mind how the gesture made the flowers fade away.

So. He has Mulder's, Scully's, and Ev's birthdays all written down in a notebook left on his bedroom floor, the best place to store all things. For Mulder's birthday, he plans on proposing a camping trip, a weekend for some Man Time that will ultimately be spent sleeping in the car and eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches that Scully packed for them. Either way, he's excited.

But nonetheless, Ev is screaming, and making her think he's Scully is out of the question, so he sits down on the floor of her room, takes her tiny, combative fist into his, and squeezes. From her fingers sprouts a flower, and then another, and then a vine that laces through his sweatshirt and up over his head. Suddenly, she quiets, eyes wide, mystified, big and blue and all-too-aware. Though his eyes have since changed, Scully said he was blue-eyed as a baby, that it was genetically possible for Ev to have his eyes as well, but so far, hers are bright blue, a strange color that is close enough to Mulder's and Scully's to bear family resemblance but just different enough to be unique. It's strange, holding her, loving her, making two little antennae-looking flowers sprout from a vine looping his head in hope that maybe she'll laugh; with his parents, he sometimes felt like an obligation, like a fuckup who needed therapy and boarding school before he could be properly be presented to the world, but with Ev in his arms, all he needs to be is there, a person who can meet the needs she can't meet herself, someone who can hold her close and make her feel as though she's here for a reason. Even though he failed biology and fucked over his two girlfriends that he never even liked and ran away because he thought that he was meant to be unloved and alone and came to their doorstep with blood beneath his fingernails begging, under the guise of a _hey, can I, like, crash here?_  statement, for a meal and someplace warm to sleep, he can still make his little sister feel safe. That's something.

The flowers aren't nearly as extensive, and they don't need to be; Ev is silent, excited, smiling her halfway smile that she usually has when she goes from Scully's arms to Mulder's in a quick succession. Will sprouts a butterfly from the vines, lets it flutter onto the top of her head and rest there, ethereal wings shivering against her forehead. Her hair is dark like his but the fairness of her skin is clearly Scully-contributed. Someday, he hopes that she'll have freckles.

Downstairs, the front door opens with conviction, and more time has passed than he thought had; slowly, he lets the flowers fade, and with the fading, Ev fades too, eyes closing slowly, breaths easing comfortably back to the pace they held before he made the irredeemable mistake of putting her in a proper place to sleep. Bounding by the baby's room, Scully and Mulder seem gloriously preoccupied - _gross_  - but Scully manages to peek in, looks at Will oddly.

"What're you guys doing on the floor?" she asks.

Will shrugs, so Scully laughs, shakes her head.

"Would you like me to take her?" she asks.

"No," Will says all-too-quickly, eliciting an eyebrow-raise. "She started screaming when I put her down, and I think she just got comfortable. Give me a couple minutes?"

"Yeah, of course," she says, nodding. "We're going to start dinner. Weather's good enough to grill. Do you have a preference for chicken or steak?"

He shakes his head.

"I'll set the table," he offers, so she nods in thanks, heads back downstairs.

Once they're both alone again, he finds Ev asleep, breaths making her little chest move in perfect time, the soft heart-covered onesie all-too-sweet against his hands.

"That'll be our little secret, okay?" he whispers, then leans down to kiss right where the now-gone butterfly had been.

Next time, he'll animate John Steinbeck, provided that he can finally understand it. Maybe then Ev's hot takes will be even more insightful.


End file.
